5 stars — the storyline, the characters, everything about this is deserving of 5 stars !!

the ending??

2.5 I think it was a fine read and was better than the first book, but only because the FMC finally shut up about Dante. The political aspects are better, but there are a lot of FMC decisions that felt rushed and just didn't make sense. I would KILL for Lor POV, I think it would have made this more bearable. However, I did enjoy the Judas moment we got in the end, but even that I felt like was predictable. I'm very conflicted about this book, and if I actually liked it....but I'll read the next one at the end of the month.

Can I just say that the blurb for this book makes it sound like the whole book is forced proximity and thats not the case. There's like 5 chapters of her being locked up. One of my favorite tropes is forced proximity. This book is the literal opposite than that. For about 60% of this book, she's running all over the world, to specifically be away from him, and he just lets her? Also let's her believe that he's ENGAGED to another woman, even tho they are mates. Maybe I read too much dark romance, but I LOVEEEEE when they lock her in his castle so they can fall in love. And then to fucking top everything off the last 5 chapters (right after they FINALLY give into to the mate bond) she's kidnapped by the enemy. So I already know first half of the next book will be forced separation already. So I won't be reading the third unless I can get the audiobook for free. Like the plot is GOOD but it's just chuck full of all of my least favorite tropes.